How do people get dinner on the table by 6:00?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for all of the great ideas! I really like the cook/eat then prep for next night idea as well as eating after the kids go to bed and making extra for their earlier meal the night before. When the baby is older I'm guessing I'll make some very simple dinners like scrambled eggs on some nights. I have to say I'm impressed that people are getting home and immediately starting to cook! I couldn't do that. But I guess it gives you more time to relax after dinner instead of before.

To be fair when your kids are a little older you’re not coming home from work and having relaxation time anyways. When they are preschoolers they want to play with you, they need help going to the bathroom and getting ready for bed, etc and when they’re elementary school, they have activities and need homework help etc. So coming home from work is not some “ahhhh let’s relax!” moment.

I know. OP does not know what lies ahead. She will be able to relax in about 17 years! 😂

[Anonymous]

I'm sick of preparing family meals and am going on strike. I work full-time and run the kids around. I have stuff for my kids to heat up, and my husband can make his own dinner. I don't even like the food I prepare for him/them. I want a salad and protein. The kids want mac and cheese. DH is annoyingly picky and I'm sick of catering to him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, we always ate at 7 PM growing up. Dad got off work at 6, home by 6:30, dinner at 7. I remember my mom saying she'd wait till Dad called her to say he was leaving the office, then she'd start dinner cooking.

IMO the thing that takes the longest time in a typical US/American dinner is the starch. Our typical meals would be a starch, a veg, and a chop or burger or pice of fish or something. The starch would be noodles, rice or potatoes. Cooking that would take the longest amount of time. If you pre cooked the starch and ket it in the freezer, you could have dinner on the table in 15 min.

Asian noodles (like soba) cook in minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most people give their kids crappy food so it’s quick. Cooking healthy food from scratch takes a lot longer which is another reason most people don’t do it.

I totally disagree.

You sound like one of those SAHMs who look down on any other family model.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weekend meal prep. That is the only way I know of to do it with both partners working.

and plan for freezable pre-portioned quantities of key part of meal, different types of microwaveable frozen veggies or precut them so it just take the 25 minute to heat oven and cook them while you make the rest of the meal, make a vat of rice and/or pasta in advance, go with thin slices of chicken tenders and shaved beef that can be cooked on the stove in like 10 minutes, try stir fry, soups, casseroles, prepackaged salad with all the stuff in the bag….none of this is difficult but might take a attempts to get timing down. You can easily get a solid meals on the table in less than 30 minute total prep/cook time. You just need to plan each weekend when you have more time…

[Anonymous]

We eat by 6 since my kids are starved when they get home (and snacks don’t cut it). I simply don’t cook things that are complicated during the week. More elaborate meals are for weekends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feed your kids leftovers from the night before at 4pm right after school. Schoolkids are cranky after school but don’t eat a large amount. Then a banana or yogurt right before bed. Bath is 6:30 here bedtime is 7:30.

So you skip dinner with your kids? To me that is a non-negotiable, an integral part of parenting. Totally unnecessary sacrifice.

Kid is grown but we did adult dinners. Kid had special needs, family dinners (one kid plus parents) were just hard. Parenting can happen in tons of ways. My best friend grew up in a large family, mom died of cancer when she was little. Housekeeper cooked dinner and put on hot plate, kids ate when they came home. Dad came home later and would pick one kid to eat with. Very close family

[Anonymous]

My kids are 2,4 and 6. If I don't have dinner on the table by 6, all hell breaks loose. Actually, at 5:30 the screaming starts. My toddler can full on tantrum when he's hangry. He still goes up to bed at 7pm (we read and rock until 7:30), so there needs to be a bath in there somewhere too.

I think nightly family dinner with dad is in my top 3 things in raising well adjusted children. I don't care what others say. (Reading books to children nightly is also incredibly important and non negotiable too).

How we get dinner on the table at 6pm? Cook the night before and reheat, we eat leftovers some nights, prep dinner the night before and just cook it quickly when we get home. I'm not into fast food, but occasionally there is a box of macaroni and cheese here. Spaghetti with sausage and a side of a vegetable is also a very easy dinner. Costco rotisserie chicken.

As parents, we get to work very early so we can leave at 4:30 or 5pm. Our kids have waited all day for us and miss us, so we need to show up in those few hours we get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sick of preparing family meals and am going on strike. I work full-time and run the kids around. I have stuff for my kids to heat up, and my husband can make his own dinner. I don't even like the food I prepare for him/them. I want a salad and protein. The kids want mac and cheese. DH is annoyingly picky and I'm sick of catering to him.

YES! Where are my Jetson family meals? I want to give each one of my kids a food pill.

[Anonymous]

We don’t— during the week, I feed the kids much simpler meals or leftovers around 5:30/6. DH and I then cook and eat after they’re in bed. We only do family meals on weekends. My kids are little though so it’ll change when they’re older.

[Anonymous]

I am impressed with all these answers. I'm a SAHM and I let myself off the hook once a week and serve wraps or sandwiches that are just involve assembly (so no prep). It's my favorite nite of the week.

[Anonymous]

My DH cooks for the week in bulk. My adult kids eat the whatever they like to cook, order in or my DH's cooking. I eat leftovers because I am not a fussy eater. I am a SAH wife.

When I was a WOHM, I was cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner in the morning. Getting up at 5 am, and every meal for the day cooked by 6:30 - 7 am.

[Anonymous]

We usually eat around 7. When my kids were little, it was important to me that we all eat together, so we would wait for my DH to get home from work. I was an SAHM for a while, now a hybrid WFH/WOHM.

-- simple meals
-- cook once, eat twice
-- fruit is a side dish
-- so is bagged salad

We don't eat a lot of processed meals. To be fair, I can be cooking by 5:30 if I have to, definitely by 6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I start cooking around 5pm/5:30, and dinner is ready an hour later. I don’t work so I have the time.

Me, too.

[Anonymous]

I can’t eat before 6:30/7 pm. I just am not hungry during the 5 o’clock hour and we have 3 kids to shuttle to activities.

But we make really basic meals. Baked potatoes, rotisserie chicken with a salad, batch frozen soups and lasagnas, Trader Joe’s stuff, pizza, charcuterie board of fridge leftovers, etc. We aren’t doing really intricate cooking except for the occasional adults-only dinner parties or other special occasion.

I used to really love food, but having kids has turned me into an eat to live person. I still love a nice dinner out for a date night and we do adult only takeout like once a week after the kids are in bed. But for the most part, food is so far down the list priorities. And I don’t have as big of an appetite in my 40s as I did when I was younger. I had a serving of pasta and salad for lunch and by dinner I filled up on 3 chicken wings and some carrots/celery.